Youthful Life: X

" The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it.  Memories need to be shared.” Lois Lowry Memories are all we have to make life real . Memories are what we cherish to carry all that has come before us. Memories are all that we truly are. What a year. What happened this year? What the actual fuck happened this year? How could this year be real? I have struggled to write this post because life is not some absolute balance weighing the benevolence of this isolated period of time. Simple me wants to say this has been by far the worst year of my life to date. Complex me knows that life not a scale that tips positive or negative. Life has nuance. Life has meaning when we assign it meaning. Life is life.  I think there is profound meaning in memory preservation, and there is immense importance in memory creation. We are tasked with doing both in our lives - holding on to the remnants of the past, and maneuvering to create our presents an...

" Stop holding your truth; speak your truth. Be yourself. It's the healthiest way to be."  T iffany Haddish What are we afraid of? Why do we hold back? How are we stopping ourselves from saying what our hearts yearn to say? So much of life, connection, and relationship is left unsaid. We hold back from sharing what is on our minds for a multitude of reasons. What we don't realize is what we lose in the process of stifling our voices. When we shut ourselves down we teach ourselves that we - all of us, our truths, our stories, our thoughts, are not worth sharing. The more the we do, the more we reinforce that the words we have to offer are unworthy of the air. Smaller, and smaller our voices become until we talk ourselves out of sharing our voices at all. It is wise to be thoughtful in what we share, but intentionality is also sharing bravely. The things that we stop just short of saying often are precisely what we need to say. It's right there. It's jus...

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." Harriet Tubman Do you dream? Do your dreams scare you? Are you dreams wondrous, magnificent, awe-inspiring? Do your dreams seem phantasmagorical, sublime, or surreal? Dreams in this literal and figurative connotations are significant to our experiences. Dreams let us imagine worlds, lives, and instances where the impossible becomes plausible. Dreams are critical to our grasping of what we are capable of. What do our dreams say about us? Are we paying attention? Are we noticing patterns? Are we taking actions to interpret the messages our dreams are communicating to us? Dreams are a manifestation of our subconscious. The part of ourselves that lies deep beneath the surface and speaks to the essence of both who we are, who we're afraid of, and who we're striving to be. What happens when we take serio...

"Learning how to be still, to really be still and let life happen - that stillness becomes a radiance." Morgan Freeman People keep saying that they can't sit still. Are we addicted to being busy? The constant go, the organized chaos of it all, and being productive - is that where we derive personal value from? There is something to be said about us being incapable of being still. This need to go, go go - where does it comes from, and what do we let it drive us. Much like most things in life, stillness is a learned practice. It takes patience, diligence, and persistence to normalize being still. Especially in a society that communicates to us that stillness is wasted time that we could be doing something else, when in actuality, stillness is part and parcel to us showing up in all other capacities. Stillness let's us breathe, be where we are, and take note of how we're doing/feeling. Stillness let's us pay attention more closely, notice the world and pe...

" No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth." Robert Southey I am useful. I constantly worry about being useful. I wonder if people only keep me around because I am specifically useful to them. I think about all the messages I received over the years about what makes me worthwhile and what others have seemingly responded most positively to is my utility. It's an odd thing to say but the more I mull it over that's how I feel. I'm a tool to be used to solve issues. I'm a fixer. I make things better. I improve other people's lives. I say what needs to be said. I am the cure. I am a remedy. I am the mirror to reflect on. I am the prompter to ask the questions that create substantive change. I am the secret weapon. I am the one that brings you out a funk. I am the one that you turn to first. I am the one that is dependable. I am the one that drops everything to prior...

"You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.” Charles Buxton One of the many myths of adulthood is that work-life balance magically happens to you. Someday you just fall into it or it comes to you naturally. There's no such thing as work-life balance. The fact that we distinguish work as if it's distinct from the rest of our lives instead of incorporated into it is telling. Work is a distinct portion of our lives but the role it plays in that life is up to us. Work-life is not a balance with more weight being given to one than the other like the scales of justice tipping either way. I like the idea of a work-life negotiation better. It's a more active process and speaks to what we're tasked with doing. We have to do our own negotiation. We have the make the life we want. We get to choose the weight we give things. Sometimes we wait for peace or balance when in reality   We don’t just find balance. We have to create our own bal...

"Too many of us are hung up on what we don't have, can't have, or won't ever have. We spend too much energy being down, when we could use that same energy — if not less of it — doing, or at least trying to do, some of the things we really want to do." Terry McMillan We cannot convince someone to like us ; more importantly we should not have to do so. People should want us, as we are, because of who we are. We should have not sell ourselves, demand recognition, or pine for attention. Let go of people who never reached out to you, those who never attempted to catch you, and those who stood idle as you took a risk. People should be able to see our inherent worth, and to value it as priceless. Anyone who needs convincing is unworthy of your essence, time, energy, or effort. We have to stop wasting our time on those who have no intention of choosing us. Why do we seek the acknowledgement, permission, acceptance, etc. of others knowing that it will never be ours? Wh...

" People are uncomfortable about disability, and so interactions can become unintentionally uncomfortable." Stella Young College messed me up . It's been almost three years since I moved my tassel from right to left, and yet I feel the lingering effects of that experience for me. I'm specifically speaking of those debilitating memories of absolutely failing exams in my science courses. Surprise, I was pre-med throughout the majority of my college career - switched from biology to religion as my major, and took some GPA hits. I had constructed the entirety of my identity in becoming a medical doctor that even when I was performing abysmally, dreaded going to class, and struggled to grasp the concepts presented to me I continue to persist instead of realizing I had other talents, gifts, abilities, and goals. I eventually figured out my real passions with journalism and educational advocacy, but not before I had crashed, burned, and failed many an exam, quiz, home...

" Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity." Hippocrates Life is about experiences - all of them, the good and the bad. Life is about making sense of those experiences, and gleaning what we can from them. Sometimes those lessons are easy to extract, to apply, and to keep pressing on - other times, we struggle to find the root cause, the bottom line, the essentials. It's the things that have caused us pain, heartache, and that indescribable heaviness that elude us. We have to learn how to heal or else the wounds that have been inflicted upon us will never do just that. We have to find the right bandage, surgery, or rehab to get us to where we need to be. Each healing process is going to be unique but it has to be appropriate for our trials and tribulations.  Healing is as much about the process of healing as it is choosing to heal. That is choosing to unpack the baggage we lug around - the hurt, anger, sadness, resentment, anx...